Pok Pok Careers
Head of YouTube
Description
Head of YouTube
We’re looking for a YouTube genius! If you’ve built a YouTube channel from scratch to hundreds of thousands of subscribers and are eager to do it again, we want to meet you!
About Pok Pok
Pok Pok is on a mission to raise the next generation of creative thinkers.
We're the team behind the Apple Design Award-winning Montessori app, Pok Pok, and were named one of TIME's 100 Most Influential Companies of 2025. Our award-winning digital toys and videos empower children to think outside the box, dream big, and explore their creativity in a mindful way. We believe screen time can be thoughtful, educational, and just as imaginative as the toys we grew up playing with on the floors of our living rooms.
Cue YouTube. The channel doesn't exist at scale yet. That means YOU get to build it from the ground up. That's either terrifying or the most exciting thing you've ever heard. If it's the second one, you might be our person!
Pok Pok is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity and inclusion. We encourage people of all races, religions, genders, abilities and sexual orientations to apply. We want the products we develop to reflect the diversity of the world we live in, and it starts with our own team.
About the Role
As our new Head of YouTube, you will own Pok Pok's YouTube channel end-to-end, from strategy through execution. This is a business leadership role as much as a strategic one. You'll own channel strategy, audience development, content planning, publishing cadence, analytics, monetization and long-term growth. You'll work closely with our Chief Creative Officer to translate Pok Pok's creative vision into content that performs and scales.
You won't inherit a playbook—you'll write it. The best YouTube channels aren't built by people waiting for someone to tell them what to do. We want someone obsessed, who watches content and thinks "I know exactly why that got 40 million views." Someone who loses sleep over retention curves and can look at a thumbnail and immediately know if a video is going to work.
For this role we are looking for someone who has already grown a channel from near-zero to at least 300K subscribers without leaning on an established IP or celebrity. You are a strategic thinker with deep empathy for kids, real hands-on experience and an almost obsessive, ever-evolving understanding of the YouTube ecosystem. This role is not for someone who waits for perfect briefs, manages from a distance, or wants a meeting-heavy week focused on discussion over action. Self-starters only please!
We will prioritize Ontario-based candidates for this role, but will also consider remote or international applicants. If you are living in Canada you must be legally allowed to work in Canada.
What You’ll Do
- Own the full YouTube channel strategy top to bottom, including growth, programming and long-term vision
- Own the full channel strategy through programming, growth and long-term vision
- Drive day-to-day performance across retention, CTR, and subscriber growth, and know exactly why the numbers look the way they do
- Lead thumbnail, title, and packaging decisions to maximize discovery
- Turn data into clear creative direction, knowing what to test, what to scale, and what to cut
- Own the content calendar in close collaboration with the CCO
- Build out the team and production workflows as the channel grows
- Bring clear, decisive thinking and strategy to the room
You Are
- A proven YouTube growth operator. We care far more about what you've built than where you've worked or how long you've been doing it for.
- Someone who has grown a YouTube channel from 0 (or very early stage) to 500K+ subscribers without leaning on major established IP or celebrity.
- Someone who understands the kids YouTube ecosystem: what parents respond to, what holds a child's attention, and how to build trust with a young audience over time.
- An expert in YouTube's algorithm at a deep level: thumbnails, titles, retention, click-through, recommendations, etc.
- Someone who thinks like a media strategist and an operator. You can map a long-term audience vision and execute week-by-week.
- Collaborative and creative, and you can work alongside a strong CCO without letting the channel become purely data-driven.
- From a YouTube-first environment: a creator, creator studio, or YouTube-native company, not a traditional brand or agency
- A doer in the truest sense of the word. You self-start, think, decide, act and improve every day.
- Someone who moves fast and takes risks, but is not reckless.
- Highly organized, proactive and calm under pressure. You're an optimist who brings positivity and solutions to the table, even when things are challenging.
- Exceptionally clear in how you communicate. You can explain exactly what you did to drive growth, not just that you were there when it happened.
Bonus Points if You Have:
- Worked in start-ups or on scrappy teams
- Deeply understand brands where parents are the customer
- Experience with kids and families
More About Us
We're a growing team of passionate, experienced creators based in Toronto. We love animals, music, travel, video games, kids, cooking, yoga, building robots, going to museums, talking about things we're watching right now and playing with old toys. We're from all walks of life and are convinced that's our secret sauce. We're a mom-founded company, too!
Other awesome things about this role:
- You'll have the unique opportunity to build, grow and make your mark joining a fast-growing start-up early on
- The option to work from our beautiful brick-and-beam office in the downtown core within walking distance to the Eaton Centre, St. Lawrence Market and Union Station
- Flexible hybrid working arrangements
- 3 weeks of paid vacation plus a 2-week holiday office closure, because life outside of work matters
- Competitive compensation including employee stock options and health benefits
- We love field trips, playtesting with kids in our community, toy research, science centres and museums. We have no fun at all.
How to apply
Show us what you've built. Your application should include:
- A cover letter with links to every channel that you've worked on. Tell us your role, the subscriber count when you started and when you left. Then, briefly explain in your own words how you made it grow.
- A short video introduction sharing something interesting about yourself that we can’t find on your resume. If you include a short video intro, we’ll guarantee Melissa, our CEO, watches it!
- Your resume
A real human will read your application. If we're interested in moving forward, you'll get a very enthusiastic message from us.